YouTube has been a part of our lives for around a decade now. What would we do without it? The community is vast and each channel has a certain audience it caters to. The things you need to do to create a successful YouTube channel are:

Create a YouTube channel: Yes, this is the most obvious and easiest bit. It’s quite simple, just go onto YouTube and sign-up.

Make your first video: Introduce yourself to your viewers. Don’t be boring. Be fun and/or weird. Be enthusiastic, yet honest (away from the bullshit they hear in their everyday lives and on other videos)

Come up with a catchy title: Ever heard of clickbait? You need to come up with a unique catchy title that will get everyone and their mother to click on your video and see what’s going on.

Expectations: Do not ever start a channel with high expectations. Rather, go in with the mind-set that you’re just doing this for fun. This will lead to less disappointment if the channel fails, or a bigger surprise if the channel succeeds. Just keep being humble and keep the quality high.

Consistent uploads: See how many videos you can upload a day and stick with it. Create a schedule of all the videos you want to make in a month and stick with it. Also jot down any ideas for content you might have.

Other Channels: Look at other channels with similar types of content to yours and examine them to see what works and what doesn’t.

Goals: If your channel blows up, then you need to start setting goals, both short term and long-term. Set the number of subscribers you want by the end of the year, or if you want to expand the range of content on your channel, decide at which point you want to start phasing in those changes.

Engage with your fan-base: This is very important, especially if you inspire them in some way. Even if you’re not as nice a person as you are on-screen, make the effort to be that nice for them. Without them, your channel would be nothing, so it’s important to keep them happy.

Picture quality: Trust me, this makes a big difference. Nobody wants to watch some low-resolution video when they can opt for the best. So invest in a nice camera (preferably HD, with or without 60fps) and prepare to be taken a lot more seriously.

Listening to your audience: Audience feedback is the key to success. Listen to your fans, take their advice. If they aren’t happy with certain types of videos you do, make less of those videos and more of the ones they praise.

Always let fans know about any changes: If you can’t upload on a certain day or for a certain amount of time due to whatever reasons, let them know. Avoid letting them believe you were just lazy or you abandoned your channel, because that would leave them upset and they will very deservedly unsubscribe from your channel.

Experiment: Always try creating new trends and new types of content that haven’t been seen or done before. Be so unique that viewers have only one option if they crave that specific type of content: You.

Collaborate: Get to know other YouTubers in the YouTube community, especially ones that don’t have content similar to yours. Build relationships with them and network with them, and even feature them in some of your videos and they can feature you in some of theirs, thus broadening your audience and rewarding you with more subscribers.

Monetization: You can earn money on YouTube by letting ads play on your video. For every 1000 views, you get somewhere between $1 to $2, so people with over a million views per day, can at least earn a comfortable 5 figure salary a month.

Copyright Strikes: Avoid getting copyright strikes at all costs. This could destroy your channel. The first strike allows you to only upload videos shorter than 15 min. The second strike disables monetization, and then the third strike kills your account permanently. There are methods you can use to get a strike removed if you can justify that you weren’t infringing on copyrighted material.